


this dance is not a whim

by vasnormandy



Series: in this maze of leaves and lovely blood [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Multi, i'll update the tags as new elements come into play, two of three
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-01 20:42:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4033897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasnormandy/pseuds/vasnormandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>across the narrow sea, the daughter of the deposed house pentaghast gathers an army to her side; near the docks of the watery city of braavos, a pair of misfit westerosi sellswords get by on sharp blades and sharper tongues; deeper in the city, an escaped slave wanders, dogged by his past. || a dragon age au set in the world of george r.r. martin's "a song of ice and fire," concerning the events in the country of essos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

you have too many leaders  
you have too many wars,  
all of them pompous and small,  
you resist only when you feel  
like dressing up,  
you forget the sane corpses…

-          margaret atwood, _crow song_

 

* * *

 

**VARRIC**

 

* * *

 

 

“The Dornishman’s wife was as fair as the sun, and her kisses were warmer than spring –”

“Hawke, stop.”

“But the Dornishman’s blade was made of black steel, and its kiss was a terrible thing!”

“Shut up, Hawke.”

“The Dornishman’s wife would sing as she bathed –”

“You’ve never met a Dornishman,” Varric interrupts. “Or his wife.”

His companion turns to face him now, though she continues walking – backwards. She spreads her arms wide, an open-mouthed smile broadening her lips. “A girl can dream, Varric!”

“You’re never going to sleep with a Dornish girl.”

She pouts. “You’re a terrible friend.”

“You are, however, surrounded by Braavosi girls.”

Just like that, her face lights up. “True. Takesies backsies.” Cheerfully, she turns around again, facing forward as she navigates the crowd. He stays just behind her, close enough that were he just a few bare inches longer, or the hair she wears down her back a few inches longer, her gnarled curls would likely hit him in the face. It’s easiest to walk in the wake she carves – when you’re his size, it’s difficult to move through hordes of people without being trod upon.

Back in Westeros, they did make an odd pair, and odd birds alone besides – a fair-haired dwarf in Oldtown, and a girl whose face and name betrayed her claims. A Tully bastard daughter, she’d say, from the Riverlands, but one who bore the surname Hawke rather than Rivers; and where one would expect pale, unblemished, porcelain skin and Tully-red hair, there was freckled skin the shade of muddied water, with tight, voluminous curls of the darkest brown. Her mother was Myrish, or so she’d claim when the disparities in her history were called out, and she takes after her. It would explain why she more closely resembles a child of the Free Cities than one of Westeros, but all the same, Varric wonders how much truth is buried within the story she tells.

Maybe there is plenty of truth in it. Maybe there's none. In all honesty, he’s not sure at all. She’s either led a very strange life, or she’s a very good liar. He suspects both may be the case.

In spite of their oddity, however, scarcely anyone in Braavos has spared them a second look. They are not the strangest thing this side of the Narrow Sea has to offer.

“Hey.” Hawke glances back over her shoulder, tossing the dense mass of curls outward. “You think I could seduce whores with my terrible Braavosi?”

“You don’t seduce whores, Hawke.”

“Well, not with that attitude,” she agrees, turning to look ahead again. “I could try High Valyrian. My High Valyrian is excellent.”

“I’ve heard your High Valyrian. It’s shit.”

“Hurtful.” A long breath. “Do they have boy whores in Braavos?”

“I think you have to pay extra for both at once.”

A shrug. “Worth it.”

“We’re broke.”

“Damn.” She ducks her head. “See, that’s why you seduce them.” A moment later, she adds, “Don’t give me that,” and he chuckles – she had not looked back to see him shaking his head at her. She had not needed to. She knows him alarmingly well.

“Sure, Hawke,” he agrees. “Whatever you say.”

“Hey. We’ve enough coin for food, right?” There’s a note of what could almost pass as concern in her voice as she moves to the side of the street, with him trailing behind her, so she can actually stop to speak with him.

He nods. “We should have enough to get us through to Isabela’s job.”

“Isabela,” Hawke echoes, stretching the last vowel. “Can always count on her. Right, then. Let’s find a tavern. I’m starving.”

They would not have had to walk far, but Hawke turns down the first three taverns that he points out – first, _too shanty_ ; second, _I don’t think we could afford to breathe the air in that place_ ; and third, _I think that’s a brothel, Varric_. She at last agrees to one close to the docks: dimly lit and woody, with a musky scent of seawater, and notably the most Westerosi of the lot. A man with a small harp is sitting in the corner, playing and singing in Braavosi, but as they find a table he can hear Hawke humming _The Dornishman’s Wife_ , picking up where he’d cut her off.

Varric orders for them – even if the servers spoke the Westerosi Common Tongue, which was a big if, Hawke’s speech patterns were often so littered with mangled sentences and made up words that she rendered herself nearly incomprehensible even to fluent speakers. The girl returns within the minute with two glasses of wine, oiled curls swinging down as she bends to set them on the table. She makes a moment’s eye contact with each of them in turn, and when she straightens up and saunters off, Varric finds Hawke grinning at him.

“Did you see that?” she demands. “She was making eyes at me.”

He lifts a brow. “She was certainly looking at you.”

“No, there were eyes, Varric,” she insists. “She wants me.”

He shakes his head. “That thing I said, about being surrounded by Braavosi girls? I didn’t mean that every single woman in this city enjoys the company of other women.”

“I’m not talking about every woman in this city, Varric.” Hawke points, almost subtly, at the girl as she leans at the bar. “I’m talking about one tavern wench. I’m telling you –”

“Mistress Hawke?”

She stops in midsentence, turning to the voice – small, young, accented, belonging to the boy who’s approached their table. After barely a glance at him, Varric is nearly sure of what he’s there for. He can’t be more than ten, his hands clasped in front of his chest with a thick coin between them, with the sunbaked skin, dirt-marked cheeks, and ragged clothes of the dock urchins that he’s seen Isabela use to carry messages before. She always pays them a little more than the task really deserves.

“I answer to _your Grace_ ,” Hawke responds flatly, lifting her wine to take a sip.

“She answers to Hawke,” Varric tells the child. “You’ve got a message from the admiral?”

“I – yes,” the boy replies, in accented, hesitant Common. “She sends me to re- regru- regre’fly –”

“Regretfully,” Varric prompts.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Inform you that – she is no longer being requiring your services. She is finding other – a other work. She is sorry for trouble. Sends this – for trouble.” He withdraws a small coin purse from his pocket and holds it out.

Varric takes it, rattles it – it’s light, a far cry from the range Isabela usually pays for jobs. “She’s hiring someone else?” he asks, in Braavosi.

Visible relief dawns on the child’s face. “Yes, ser,” he responds, his speech much smoother in his own tongue. “She says to apologize, but she has not seen this man in many years, and owes him many favors.”

“Who is this man?”

“She did not say his name, ser. She mentioned he was of the Norvoshi Crows.”

“Crows,” he echoes, in muttered Common, and Hawke’s head pops up immediately.

“The bloody Crows?” she demands; he nods, puts a hand up, turns back to the boy.

“Tell the admiral we’re grateful for her generosity,” he says in Braavosi, lifting the coin purse, “but would appreciate it if, in the future, she didn’t book our services unless she intended to follow through.” The boy gives a quick nod, and immediately scampers away, disappearing quickly into the tavern crowd.

“Bloody Crows?” Hawke repeats, even more indignant than the first time, and Varric nods again.

“Tyroshi doesn’t need us,” he says, tossing the purse to her. “She’s hiring some man she knows from the Crows. That’s our consolation prize.”

“Bugger me with a fucking spear,” she swears, pulling open the drawstrings of the purse and tipping the meager sum out into her palm. “This will last us, what? A fortnight?”

“Less,” he corrects, “and only if we’re careful with it.”

She shakes her head, biting down hard as she tips the coins back into the purse and hands it across the table to him. “I take back what I said,” she declares. “I’m rather cross with Isabela now. Next time she asks to sleep with me, I’m going to tell her no.”

“And that’ll make you feel better?”

“Absolutely not.” Hawke seems almost affronted by the very suggestion. “I’ve no doubt it’ll hurt me at least as much as it hurts her. But we can’t have her thinking she can have whatever she wants from us exactly – and only – when she wants it.”

He heaves a sigh. “Hawke, we’re freelancers with no damn jobs to speak of. She kind of can.”

“Hush, Varric.” She takes a long swig of wine, smacks her lips, shakes her head. “Let me retain some illusion of dignity.”

He chuckles, lifting his own wineglass. “Fine. To unreliable business partners, and illusions of dignity.”

A laugh breaks forth from her lips. “I’ll drink to that,” she agrees, hefting her glass to clink against his. “May we never have one without the other.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured it was about time I actually started posting this. I don't know how often I'll be updating, since my intention is to post the new chapters for all three fics at the same time - which means any given update required writing three chapters, not one - but I have a few written in the buffer for each of the fics and exam season is finishing up over here, so we should be good.  
> A few notes regarding how this series is to be read that I'll put in the notes of all three fics:  
> -The three fics in this series occur simultaneously. They are separated by location: the Seven Kingdoms, Essos, and the land beyond the Wall. Currently, each fic has four narrators who chapters will alternate between.  
> -All three fics (hopefully) will be updated simultaneously and are meant to be read simultaneously. However, I'm endeavoring to write them such in a way that this is not required. You'll probably get the most out of them by reading all three at the same time, but you shouldn't have to read the other two in order to enjoy and understand the events of any given one.  
> -I'm putting archive warnings for violence and character death on all three fics because hey, it's Game of Thrones. People are going to die. It may be that four people die in the fic set beyond the Wall and none die in the Free Cities, but I'm going to put the archive warnings on all three. Just in case.  
> -The prologue work is pure exposition. If you want to be introduced to Leliana's part early and get a sense of the state of the world, you may want to glance at it, but it's not required reading.  
> -I'm working with three of my protags in this fic - Esther Cousland, Maribel Hawke, and Liranen Lavellan. All three are point of view characters in the fics they're part of.


	2. Chapter 2

**CASSANDRA**

 

* * *

 

 

Regalyon’s tail coils around her wrist like a bracelet, shimmering green scales adorning sun-brown skin.

“My queen,” Delrin Barris begins, “if I may offer counsel –” As though on cue, Anthon hisses, his back arching like a predator readying to pounce. He stalks forward across the cushion on which Cassandra is seated, and she moves her hand to run her fingers down the ridge of his back once, twice. He calms, turning in a circle before settling on the cushion again; Regalyon shifts on her arm to account for her movement, and even through the thick leather of her armor she can feel the grip of his claws tighten to hold on. On her other side, Justinion is calm, watching the man carefully from his perch on the arm of her seat, his white scales glinting in the morning sun.

Barris seems wary of Anthon’s hostility, if not cowed by it. Cassandra narrows her eyes, responding, “You may offer counsel when I ask it of you.”

“Your Grace –”

“I owe you my life, Ser,” she interrupts, “and these ships. For this, you have my gratitude. But do not presume to have my trust.”

He lingers for a moment in unsure silence before giving a low nod. “Of course, your Grace,” he agrees, clasping his hands together behind his back as he bows. “If I may take my leave?”

“Go,” she replies, and he turns and marches away across the deck of the ship.

“A little harsh,” declares a rumbling voice from her left, and she turns to the man who has seated himself on a crate beside her chair. He is vast, with dark, near-ashen skin and shining black hair braided down his back – it could be mistaken for the Dothraki custom, were it not for the fact that he does not cut it after a lost battle. His narrow face is short one eye, the scarred place it ought to be concealed by a patch of black leather, and he wears only a sort of leather harness above the waist. It seems to her impractical garb for battle, but she has seen his skills in combat firsthand and has found little to complain about.

He tips his head to the side, and she cannot help but think that he looks rather different without the helmet he so often wears, with the large horns extending to either side. She has not seen him in it quite so often since his second in command joked that the queen’s young dragons might feel rather outdone, with their horns – like the rest of them – yet to reach anything close to their full size.

“Did I ask for your opinion?” she questions.

“No,” the Iron Bull replies, “but I like giving it.”

“You are speaking to your queen, I might remind you.”

“I am speaking to my friend.” His mouth curves into a grin. “Come on. You don’t think you’re being a little hard on the kid?”

“He is hardly a child, Bull,” she reasons.

“Well, he’s older than you,” he agrees, “but that isn’t saying a lot.”

She answers this with a hardened glare, and he answers that with a laugh and hands raised in surrender; she sighs, shakes her head. “Ser Barris will have my respect once he has earned it.”

“What, saving you from an assassin and giving you ships isn’t enough?”

“I do not know him well enough yet to gauge his motives.”

He shakes his head. “With that outlook, Khaleesi, you’ll die alone and friendless.”

“With this outlook, I will die old and on the throne,” she corrects. “And ‘your Grace’ would be a more fitting title. You are not of the Dothraki.”

“True,” he agrees, “but I like to say it. _Khaaaaaaa-leeeeeeeee-siiiiiiiiiii_.”

“Bull.”

“Fine. What about Cass?”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“I could do your full titles, if you want. What’s the order? Mother of Dragons, something about unburnt…”

“ _Bull_.”

He groans. “Fine. Have it your way. Your Grace.”

She gives a nod, reaches out to lay her hand gently atop Justinion’s head – it is still barely the size of her palm, but he is growing larger. All three of them are. He stretches his neck, presses his head upwards against her hand; she strokes downward, a gentle trail down his neck, and he croons, a quiet, rumbling sound. Of the trio, Justinion is the most amiable. Regalyon, she would say, is the most protective – Anthon the most aggressive. But she is sure all three would scorch this ship and everyone on it until it was little more than cinders drifting in the waves if they felt that she was threatened.

“You know,” Bull begins after a moment – he is addressing her, but his eyes are, not unsurprisingly, fixed on her dragons – “Barris may be right.”

Cassandra frowns. “About what? I did not give him a chance to voice his counsel.”

“We’re sailing for Slaver’s Bay,” Bull points out. “How many things could be on his mind?”

A sigh. “I need an army.”

“You’ve mentioned.” His broad shoulders lift and fall in a massive shrug. “Westeros has a thing about slavery, Ca- _your Grace_. Marching in to reclaim the throne with an army of Unsullied? Might not be the image you want.”

She draws a long breath. “You have a suggestion, I assume?”

“Sellswords.”

“Like the Chargers?”

“Eh. Sort of. But more,” he replies. “There’s some big groups out there. Get enough of them together, and you’ve got a sizeable force – and skilled. I had Krem put some feelers out, see who’s looking for work.”

“That –” There is a touch of anger rising in her tone, and she cuts it off quickly, setting her teeth and running a hand down Justinion’s spine again; the smooth spines beneath the roughened pads of her fingers calms her sometimes. “I did not ask you to do that.”

“Don’t worry,” he says quickly. “He didn’t make any promises, and he didn’t mention you. You don’t want to follow up on this, fine – nobody out there’s expecting you to. But I figured I should see if this was even possible before I brought it up to you.”

A controlled sigh. If she is to operate in the realm of politics, she supposes she must resign herself to the fact that her agents are each possessive of their own agendas, their own connections, and that they may take their own actions outside of her direct orders. And, perhaps, that this may on occasion be for the best. She does not know everything, after all. “And?”

There’s a hint of a smile. “Flint Company’s out of the question,” he says, “but that’s no real loss. They’re assholes. The Red Iron and the Coterie are available, but they’re not as reliable as some others. You’d want to keep an eye on them. Valo-Kas is willing to open negotiations, but they’re a little choosy about their clientele. Damn good fighters, though, and loyal to more than coin. Fought them a few times. Fought with them a few others. I can vouch for them.”

She nods slowly as she processes each piece of information. “I would expect that I would qualify as… _elite_ enough a client to interest the Valo-Kas.”

“Just Valo-Kas,” he corrects. “No article. The bulk of their group is in Lys right now, but I can write a letter, ask them to send a representative.”

Another nod, this one curt and short. “Write it. I will tell you when to send it.”

“Done.”

“Is there anyone else?”

He thinks on it. “Yeah. The Norvoshi Crows.”

That gives her a moment’s pause. “I have heard this name.”

“They’re pretty well known,” he agrees. “Very highly regarded. Very expensive. They’re a large group, and damn good at what they do.”

“But?”

“But you’re going to want to mind your words and watch your back around them,” he adds. “They’re not… it's not that they aren't dependable, exactly. If they’re loyal to you, they’re loyal to the last. But that’s a real if.”

“And if they are not?” she inquires.

Another vast shrug. “Then they’re likely to take your coin and slit your throat.”

Her eyes narrow; she feels Justinion and Regalyon tense, hears a soft hiss from Anthon. “They may try,” she responds, and though her voice remains level, there is a dangerous note running beneath it.

“They may succeed,” Bull counters. “If anyone can, it’d be a Crow.”

She is silent for a long several minutes as she considers the options he has presented her with. At last, she announces, “Write your letters. Valo-Kas and the Crows. You will send them on my word. In the meantime, we continue our course for Slaver’s Bay.”

He nods his understanding, rising from his crate – on his feet, he towers above her, casting an enormous shadow over a stretch of the deck. “Sure thing, Boss.”

Her brow creases – her eyes narrowed, her eyebrows pushed downward. “Boss?”

“Trying it out. No good?”

“We are not having this conversation.”

An exasperated groan. “Sure. You got it.” He turns, begins to stride towards his quarters, his braid swinging as his hulking figure retreats across the deck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the most part, I'm inserting DA characters into ASOIAF, but I have made a few switches and this is probably the most significant of them - the Pentaghasts are, essentially, the Targaryens.  
> It's been about two weeks since I posted the first part of this and I think that's the schedule I'm going to try to keep to. So unless the speed at which I'm writing these chapters increases significantly, you can probably expect an update around every two weeks. Probably.  
> Also, one thing I think I neglected to mention: although I may be twisting the canon timeline of ASOIAF a little bit to keep the three fics in sync, we're pretty much starting around midway through A Storm of Swords - or, for you show-watchers, Season 3.


	3. Chapter 3

**MARIBEL**

 

* * *

 

“Valar.”

“Valar.”

“Dohaeris.”

“Do-har-us.”

“ _Hae_ -ris.”

“Valar do-hair-us.”

“Dohaeris.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

Varric chuckles, tossing a piece of whatever it is they’ve bought to eat into his mouth. He used some Braavosi word when she asked what it was, and he claims it doesn’t translate, but she’s fairly certain that’s bullshit. It seems to be an assortment of meats and vegetables, seasoned and charred and served impaled on a small wooden rod. Varric, show-off that he is, likes taking each morsel off and tossing it in a high arc into his mouth, but Maribel is enjoying gnawing the food right off of the stick.

“You’re not my type, Hawke,” he says, once he’s finished chewing.

“I am everyone’s type,” she replies, an excessively harsh insistence. “Do-hay–”

“Dohaeris,” he corrects yet again. “Like – do-high-ris.”

She purses her lips, scrunches her brow, and mimics his broken-down pronunciation as best she can.

He shrugs. “Close enough.”

“Valar dohaeris.”

“You’ve got a horrible Westerosi accent, but yeah, you’re getting the hang of it.”

She frowns. “My accent is not horrible.”

“It is when you’re speaking Braavosi.”

Maribel sticks out her tongue at him, puts it back in her mouth only so that she can take a bite out of a piece of meat on her skewer. It’s exquisite, really – tough but flavorful, seasoned to perfection. “What kind of meat is this?” she questions. Varric answers in Braavosi, and she glares at him. “Don’t be a shit.”

He laughs, and pulls a bit off of one of his pieces, sticking it into his mouth. “It’s lamb,” he says. “I think.”

“It’s amazing.”

Another laugh. “Welcome to Braavos.”

“Mmm.” She drops her head back, closes her eyes, gives a blissful sigh. “I’m never going home.”

“That right?”

“Yes,” she breathes. “Fuck Westeros.”

Varric chuckles. “You can say that again.”

“Fuck Westeros,” she repeats. Fuck the Seven Kingdoms, she thinks. Fuck the Riverlands. Fuck the Tullys, so high and mighty, with their pale, pinched faces and their children’s children set to lord over the North and the East. Fuck the smug bloody highborn; fuck her cousins of no higher birth than her who barely thought her fit to share the surname Rivers. Fuck the surname Rivers, for that matter – she’d dropped it from her name the same day she’d left the Riverlands. Maribel Rivers was a smart-mouthed Westeros bastard who never learned her place. But Maribel Hawke is a sellsword bitch with a quick blade and a quicker mouth, who grew tired of her homeland and so struck out across the Narrow Sea to find better fortunes elsewhere. She had always been more Myrish than Westerosi anyhow.

She pulls the last scorched vegetable off of the stick with her teeth, flooding her mouth with overpowering taste as she chews it and swallows it. “Come on,” she declares, patting Varric’s knee and rising to her feet. “Let’s head inland. See if we can’t find some work deeper in the city.”

“People on the docks tend to have lower standards,” he points out, and she gives an exaggerated wince – though she’s painfully aware of how astute his statement is. In a country with as many sellswords and mercenary groups as Essos, there aren’t many who’d like to hire a woman and a dwarf from Westeros.

“True,” she agrees, “but the docks are where Isabela is. I don’t want to –”

“Don’t want to what, sweet thing?”

Maribel swears as she turns – the captain herself stands just behind her, blue scarf holding back her curls, gold dangling from her ears and framing her neck, all swagger and lush flesh barely contained in a laced white tunic and enormous boots. From the bared skin to the coiling mess of hair, every inch of her gleams in the noontime sun.

“Isabela,” Maribel acknowledges, her voice dripping with insincere sweetness.

Isabela shakes her head in mock-disapproval. “You Westerosi,” she chides. “Such terrible language.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Maribel counters. “Those Tyroshi. Always have to keep a hand on your coin purse when they’re around.”

“Yes, speaking of,” Isabela says, and then she’s produced a small purse from somewhere and is tossing it up into the air and catching it. After three times, she tosses it to Varric instead. “Keep a better eye on that. Gods know you’re poor enough as it is.”

“Tyroshi,” he admonishes.

“Just keeping you both on your toes,” she chimes. A small smirk turns up the corner of her lips, and she gestures back towards the sea with her head. “Join me on my ship?”

“Why?” Maribel asks, perhaps with a touch more hostility in her tone than she’d meant. “You’ve made it quite clear you have no need of us.”

“Yes, well. About that.” Isabela takes a slow step towards her, quirks the corner of her lip up in a sly, flirtatious grin. “I may have need of you after all.”

“She’s not going to sleep with you,” Varric pipes up.

Maribel closes her eyes – by all seven Hells and every inch of bloody fucking land in between, she is going to shove his smug little head right up the Braavosi Many-Faced God’s arse.

“Did I ask her to sleep with me?” Isabela quips.

“Varric,” Maribel says through gritted teeth, opening her eyes and glancing back at him, “shut up.”

“What?” he responds, charmingly innocent. “So you are going to sleep with her?”

“No, I’m not, but that’s not a discussion I need you having with her.”

“Why not? It’s a discussion you had with me.”

“Varric –”

“Excuse me,” Isabela interrupts. “Did I ask?”

Maribel breathes a sigh. “You were building up to it.”

“I was building up to offering you money.”

“That’s prostitution.”

“Varric, shut up!”

Isabela gives a light, brief laugh. “For murder, Varric, not for sex.”

“Right, Varric. For murder.” Maribel shoots a final withering look at her companion before turning back to Isabela. “Keep talking.”

She sighs. “Back on my ship?”

“Here will do.”

“Do you have no respect for the need for discretion in such matters, Hawke?”

“I have a little. Talk.”

A louder sigh. “Fine. Have it your way.” She starts to pace, long strides carrying her back and forth across the corner of the alley that Maribel and Varric have settled in; Varric backs himself up to the wall to get out of her way. “You know that job I had lined up for the two of you?” she begins. “As it turns out, it still needs doing.”

“Thought you passed it off to a friend of yours,” Varric counters, his arms crossed. “A Crow?”

Isabela shakes her head. “I must remind those boys not to tell more than I’ve paid them to tell,” she muses. “Yes. I had intended to give the job to a man I know. Call it a personal favor. I owe him. I heard he was around, and figured he might be looking for work. But as it turns out, he wasn’t on the market.”

“Hold on,” Maribel interjects, putting up a hand. “You got rid of the people you’d already hired to take care of this… thing of yours – _before_ you confirmed that the person you planned to hire instead even wanted the fucking job?”

“What can I say?” Isabela gives a wide shrug. “I’m an optimist.”

“You’re an opportunist,” Varric corrects.

“You say potato.”

He sighs. “You’re going to pay us more than you’d originally promised. One and a half times should be good. And we’re keeping the consolation pay.”

“Done.”

“Varric,” Maribel hisses, her voice low – yes, thank you, she’s entirely aware that Isabela can still hear her, but it’s the suggestion of shutting her out of the conversation that she really wants to get across.

“What?” he asks, at a regular volume. _Thanks, Varric_. “We need the work, Hawke. We’ve got no other offers and barely enough coin to get us through the next week. So unless you’d rather starve than swallow your pride?”

Damn. He has a point. He usually does. She heaves a rather overdramatic sigh. “Fine,” she bemoans, and then, to Isabela: “But you’re not pulling this shit on us again, got it?”

The captain nods. “On my honor.”

“Do better.”

She laughs. “Oh, how you know me. All right, then – on all the gold the hold of my ship has ever borne. That good enough for you?”

“It’s good enough.” She crosses her arms. “Well, then. Time and place?”

“Tomorrow night,” Isabela replies. “The slums just north of here.”

“Varric?”

“I know the place.”

Maribel nods. “Right. Anything else?”

“Bring lots of sharp things.” She smiles. “And don’t get killed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late update, but the plot's starting to actually move along, which is always nice. And the next update will have Fenris.
> 
> Writing this fic is a weirdly different experience than writing the other fics because this one hasn't gotten dark or serious. I go from bullshitting Westerosi politics and working out the mess beyond the Wall to writing Varric and Hawke eating kabobs. It's a nice change of pace.


	4. Chapter 4

**FENRIS**

 

* * *

 

In Volantis, they tell you that Braavos was built on the bones of the slaves who fled Valyria.

Braavos was, of course, built by the slaves who fled Valyria. This fact of history is not rewritten, not overlooked. But to hear the magisters tell it, these ex-bonds were vicious creatures, the strong rising up to construct their city of savagery atop the corpses of the weak. Their first law, their vow against slavery, was born of their love for chaos, their primitive desire to live in the anarchic vacuum they called freedom. This drive to live free robbed them of all the comforts of structured, civilized society and created a hub of squalor and misery, where the worst of all the world’s cultures crawled into the shadows to fester and rot.

Those tales were meant to scare them. They were a tool the masters used to keep their slaves in like. Not that they themselves ever told the stories, of course – as was the case with every tool, they had slaves to wield it. For many it served its purpose. Fenris knew slaves who would shy away from the very name of the city as though it belonged to a monster, a beast rather than a place. Even he still feels a nagging sense of disgust, distaste, at the thought of it – lingering, planted in the corners of his mind along with his growing hate.

But of all the things he had expected from the city of the stories, the refuge of those who dared defy the dragonlords of Valyria – he had not thought it would be so damned wet.

Perhaps the canals flooded recently – with the frequency with which it rains here, he would not be surprised. Perhaps that is the reason for the half-inch of standing water on the cobblestone street he lurks on. And him with little more than fabric wrapped around his feet. His footsteps splash – no, slosh against the ground as he walks, wanders vaguely in the direction of higher ground to find an out of sight corner where he can sleep without winding up soaked to the bone.

The magisters may not have been entirely wrong about the squalor. He has seen glimpses of the riches of this place, but they are mere glimmers of light, far-off, in a landscape of grey poverty. The canal water mixes with the dust and the dirt into mud; the mud cakes itself to the feet of children with no families, no homes, no food yet today; the children with mud for shoes dart through crowds, relieving more fortunate strangers of a purse here, a bracelet there. But they were wrong, he thinks, about the savagery. He is cold, and he is hungry, and he is hunted, but he is alive – in large part due to kindness. Charity, altruism – these are unfamiliar concepts to him, the soft touch rather than the hidden knife, so great is his mistrust. A few days previously, a street urchin brought him a few scraps of food and a small canteen of water. She could not have been more than seven, but all the same, he suspected poison.

“It’s only bread and water,” the girl had promised when she’d seen his reluctance, and to prove this, she’d torn off a small piece of the bread and shoved it into her mouth. “Look.”

“Why?” Fenris had asked, but he’d reached out to break off a piece of the bread.

The girl had shrugged. “You look hungry. And Myah took more than we needed.”

“That’s your friend?”

“My sister. She steals, but only what we have to. Mostly.” The girl had offered the water again, and he’d taken that too.

In the cold now, walking into the wind, Fenris remembers the urchin’s fingers, warm and pudgy like children’s are, padding across the markings on his chin in innocent curiosity – remembers the sting of the old scars at her light touch. “What are they?” she’d asked.

“Tattoos.”

“They’re pretty.”

“They’re marks of bondage.” It had come out more venomous than he’d meant it, but the girl seemed not to notice – or perhaps simply not to care. She was a beggar child. She must be used to harsh words.

“Slavery?” she’d asked, voice hushed like a secret, and he’d nodded. “We don’t have slaves here,” she’d said, curt, informative, as though she thought perhaps he didn’t know. “You’re not allowed to be that anymore. You’ll have to be something else.” And then she’d glanced over her shoulder, shoved the rest of the bread into his hands, and scurried off – like a mouse into the gutter, she had disappeared into the stone and the shadow in seconds.

Sometimes, if he had angered Danarius, Fenris would go for days without food; hunger is not unfamiliar to him. The water was gone in an evening, but he made the bread last for three days. After that it was back to scrounging, back to picking up what scraps he could find.

The hooded man approached him nearly a week after the urchin girl did. He was tall, pale under the shadowy folds of his robes; his face was obscured in darkness. He did not bring food, like the child had, but rather came to a seemingly unplanned stop as he passed the wall Fenris sat against. He looked down, glanced him over, removed a hand from his robes and offered its contents – coins, whose worth Fenris was unsure of – to him.

“Who are you?” he asked as Fenris rose to his feet, scooped the coins from his hands.

“No one important,” Fenris had said.

“A slave?”

He’d nodded.

“Did you kill him?” the man had inquired, and then amended, “Your master,” as though such clarification was necessary.

“Not yet,” Fenris had replied. The man seemed pleased enough with this answer, and added an additional coin to the small pile in Fenris’s hand.

“If you find yourself hungry enough,” he had said, “with no place to turn, go to the House of Black and White. You will have food, and a bed, and a purpose. You might do well in the service of the Many-Faced God.”

“I have had enough of servitude.”

The man had laughed. “Spoken like a true Braavosi,” he’d said, and he’d continued on his way.

He can still feel the weight of a few of the man’s coins in his pocket. They were worth more than he’d thought, and his mind sometimes wanders to the man, wonders who he was that he would give so generously to a beggar with the brands of slavery white against his skin.

He had gone to the House of Black and White the next day, after he spent the first of the coins. With a full stomach, for the first time in months, he stood at the base of the steps, looked up at the doors – one black, one white, quite fittingly. And then he’d left. _Food, a bed, a purpose_ , the man had offered, but Fenris had all three in Danarius’s home. They may have been poor in quality, but stale bread is still bread; a cold, hard cot is still a cot; a master’s orders are still, in their way, words that one can live by.

Serve a man or serve a god, it makes no difference in the end – in one hand there is food, there is a bed, there is a reason for one’s existence, and in the other there is a man’s right to live free. Fenris has already made his choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE FENRIS. and sorry i know this chapter is a little shorter than usual but hey, we have now introduced all of our narrators. and maybe things can actually start happening. that's a plus.
> 
> okay so reviews are the best shit ever. i feel like i should mention that. it's quick, it's easy, it's free: making sure authors feel appreciated for the work they do. it's incredibly encouraging and i'd like to know what you guys like that's happening here so i can do more of that and what you guys don't like that's happening here so i can do less of that.  
> and in unrelated news i'm giving up on trying to pass myself off as a sophisticated intellectual person by using proper capitalization and punctuation in my author's notes. it was bound to happen eventually. anyway. please review. you're the best.


	5. Chapter 5

**CASSANDRA**

 

* * *

 

The sun has just begun to dip beneath the rooftops as the young queen tips her chin upward to watch it in its path. “Your man is late,” she says.

“He’s not my man.” The Iron Bull makes a low, huffed noise, something between a grunt and a single note of laughter. “By the end of the day, he’ll be yours. Remember?”

“If he agrees.”

“Oh, he’ll agree.” Bull shakes his head. “You’re the Mother of fucking Dragons. You think he’s got someone more interesting he could be serving?”

Cassandra draws a long breath, scans the crowd that fills the streets of New Ghis. She mislikes this city; she mislikes that they had already passed its port when the Iron Bull’s contact in the Crows deigned to respond to their raven, and lost over a day’s travel returning. She had said as much when they docked, but Bull only shook his head and replied, “You mislike everything.”

He stands next to her now, vast and armed to the teeth and unreservedly prepared to leap to her defense should the need for him to fulfill his position as her bodyguard present itself. He’s brought a few of his men along as well, front-line mercenaries from his company, for her protection. They stand in the shade offered by the fabric canopy over an empty merchant’s stall, out of the way of the locals milling about the market. The black-haired woman and the fair-haired man behind her are the quiet sort – Bull called them Skinner and Grim, and neither has offered much in the way of conversation. But the short man who guards her left introduced himself as Rocky, and has all but talked her to death any time there was silence to fill.

“Do you think he’ll recognize us?” he’d asked when they’d arrived at the meeting point chosen by the Crow, glancing unsurely at the swarms of New Ghis citizens.

“He ought to,” Cassandra had replied.

“I mean, you don’t have your dragons,” he’d pointed out. “And you don’t look particularly… queen-y.”

She’d frowned at that, looked down at him – she was dressed in full armor, finely engraved, a little braid like a crown atop her short hair. “And what do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.” He’d shrugged. “Only – when people think about _queens_ , they think… _regal_. You know. Dresses and shit. And big hats. You’d considered dresses and hats, right?”

A long breath; a displeased hum. “Tell me,” she had begun. “When you think of the mightiest king you can imagine, do you think of him garbed in silks one could cut clean through with a butter knife? Or do you see him dressed for battle, with a sword in his hand?”

Rocky had faltered. “Erm. Dressed for battle, your Grace.”

Another hum, this one louder and more clearly ringing with discontent. “Yes,” she’d agreed. “Now, if you believe this man would require I be beautiful to see me as his queen, then perhaps it is for men to consider why they would not ask the same of their king.”

Rocky had stayed silent for a moment, and then grunted. “Point well made, your Grace,” he’d agreed.

She had breathed in, straightened her back, held her chest proudly forward. “And regardless,” she’d added, “your captain is rather difficult to overlook.”

But overlooked they may have been, she thinks now – the sun continues to sink lower in the sky, and the man from the Crows has yet to appear. She huffs. “He chose this place. He could at the very least keep to the schedule he set.”

“Oh. Yeah, he’s not late.” Bull crosses his arms. “He’s here somewhere.”

A frown settles on her face, and she looks up at him. “Then why has he not presented himself?”

“He’s scoping us out. Seeing what we’ll do.” He huffs. “Asshole move. But clever. If we leave, then he figures he wasn’t worth our time, and thinks the same of us. But we stay, and he gets a picture of what we’re like before he meets us. Gives him a leg up on us. Crows don’t like to be on even footing.”

“And these are the men we mean to ally with?”

“Hey. Just because they’re not good people doesn’t mean they’re not good swords.”

“Careful now, my very, very large friend. I may take offense to that.”

The voice is light and playful and accented, and comes from behind them. Cassandra turns on her heel, her hand going instantly to the sword she wears. It takes her a moment to spot the intruder – in fact, it is not until he whistles that her gaze turns upward, to the strangely garbed man atop their stall’s canopy.

He wears green and black and silver: green leathers for his torso, for his gloves and tall boots, silver for the layered plating down the fronts of his arms and legs and for the mask – shaped like the eyes and beak of a bird – that he has tilted up to reveal his face, black drapery for his thin cloak and the hood over his head. His skin and hair are golden both, and two curved black lines mark the side of his face; he has a long, slim dagger tucked into his belt, and his lips are curled upward in a smile. He perches, nimble as a cat, on fabric stretched taut that looks as though it rightly should not hold his weight.

Skinner has drawn her sword and holds it at the ready, but the Iron Bull puts a hand out to stop her. “This is our guy,” he tells her.

The man winks, and in an impossibly smooth movement, launches himself from the canopy and tumbles forward through the air, landing with two feet and one hand on the ground. The move disturbs his precariously held-up mask, and when he straightens up, it has fallen in front of his face; he fumbles with it for a moment, pushing it back up, before he turns his gaze to Cassandra. “An honor, my lady,” he declares, sweeping his hand out to the side and bowing as low as he dares without risking his mask falling again. “The Norvoshi Crows send their regards.”

Cassandra clears her throat. “Their regards, and the best of their men, I would hope.”

He clicks his tongue. “You cut right to the chase, my lady. Efficient! Yes, but you lose the _effect_. The – shall we say, the foreplay of it all?”

“I don’t need foreplay,” she replies, her tone blunt and notably lacking in patience. “I need swords, and Crows to wield them.”

“True enough,” he admits. “But all the same. We might at least exchange names before opening negotiations, yes?”

“I would expect you should know mine already.”

“Yes, yes. Her Grace, Cassandra Pentaghast, the First of her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, and all of this.” He makes a cycling motion with his hand as he rattles off the titles. “But I have you at quite the disadvantage in this regard. We cannot have that.” He bows again – not nearly as low this time, more a dramatic flair than an actual courtesy, his hands thrown outward. “Zevran Arainai, if it please you, my lady.”

Cassandra straightens her back – clasps her hands together behind her to force her posture forward. “I told my advisor to send for an assassin,” she says shortly. “Not a charlatan.”

He presses a hand to his chest. “My lady, you wound me.”

“I might.”

He heaves a sigh. “Very well. We shall conduct this your way.” He shifts, stands at his full height – significantly shorter than her, but notably taller than his previous casual slouch. “Your large associate’s missive suggested that you sought to employ an army of sorts.”

“Of sorts,” she agrees.

“For what purpose, if I may ask?”

“To reclaim my homeland,” she replies. “To take back my throne.”

“Ah.” He taps the side of his nose. “A grab at power. I understand.”

“It is my right,” she refutes.

“There is no need to defend yourself, my lady,” he says. “It is only human nature.”

“I did not ask you here to have my motives analyzed.” She takes a long, steadying breath – she is unsure as to whether she likes this man. He is glib; he converses casually, lowers his voice and leans in as though to seduce; he presumes too much. But it is an army she seeks, she reminds herself. Not a friend.

She closes her eyes for half a moment as she breathes, and painted on the back of her eyelids she sees Anthony, as she likes to remember him: smiling, in sunlight, his head still attached to his body. In her heart, she is lonely – perhaps this has begun to cloud her resolve. She cannot let it. Not if she is to take for herself the throne that he should have sat, the throne that is now hers and hers alone. No, what she thinks of this representative, this Zevran, is of little consequence. What she needs from him is his forces, not his companionship.

“How many men,” she asks, her eyes open again, her voice hard as iron, “can you offer me?”

Zevran hums softly as he considers the question. “Well,” he begins, drawing out the vowel, “it _is_ possible to hire the entire House of Crows. It has only been done once before.”

“I need every sword you have to sell.”

He clicks his tongue. “This will be very expensive, my lady. I doubt all the gold in this fair little city would suffice to purchase the services of every Crow in Norvosh. And from what I have heard, this…” He shakes his head. “You do not possess.”

“When this is over,” she says, “I will be the queen of seven kingdoms. Is there enough gold in Westeros to purchase the services of every Crow in Norvosh, Zevran Arainai?”

“Well… _probably_ ,” he admits. “I confess I have never been to Westeros.”

“The Lannisters alone should have more than enough money,” Bull supplies, addressing her. “And we’re going to kill all of them. Right?”

Cassandra offers him a brief nod, and returns her attention to Zevran. “There,” she says.

“ _There_ ,” he echoes. “You speak as though this ends negotiations.”

“Does it not?”

He hums again, this time the sound more skeptical than contemplative. “Perhaps,” he says. “Perhaps you shall cross the Narrow Sea with a thousand Crows at your back and win back your iron chair, and we will bathe in the riches of Westeros. But what if you should lose, hmm? What would you pay us with then? You cannot buy an army with _perhaps_.”

“I would hire the Crows to win me back the Iron Throne,” she rebuts. “If I should lose, then they have not accomplished this task. Why should I pay anything for failure?”

For a moment, she thinks she has said the wrong thing – he is silent, and she is sure, for a second that stretches itself into minutes and minutes and hours, that he will refuse her. Tilt his mask downward to cover his face and spring back up onto the canopy, scale the building behind it in seconds and disappear over the top, taking any hopes of a legion of master assassins fighting for her with him. But instead, after that short silence that feels so long – he laughs.

“Very well then, my lady,” he agrees joyfully. “We’ll shake on it, shall we?” He extends his hand, and, slightly baffled, she shakes it.

“You will fight for me?” she asks.

He dips his head – a nod, assent. “The Crows are yours, my lady. We will take back your country for you. And you will fill our coffers with Lannister gold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> zevran!!! i love him. who doesn't love him.


End file.
